Starting from the end — Lean Decision Development [Opinion]

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Deciding on a path to take can be difficult. (Image via
alittlestarlette.wordpress.com)

This is an edited version of
an article that originally appeared on Medium.

I was fortunate enough to take the Lean LaunchPad course with
Steve Blank at the Haas Business School at Berkeley, which taught
Customer Development, a structured methodology to think about
startup ideas and search for a profitable and repeatable business
model.

At its core, the model is about hypothesis
testing (‘getting
outside the building’), learning, and iterating - before
committing too much time and money.

In a similar spirit to hypothesis testing but
following a different approach is Design Sprints, developed and
adopted internally at Google. The idea is a fast design process to
learning without building and launching.

I
see both approaches as complementary. I’d use Design Sprints for
fast iteration, to search for a product-market fit via a
low-fidelity mockups (each cycle is one week). I would then use the
Customer Development approach to validate the other business model
aspects to form a well-investigated execution blueprint (time
duration is about 10 weeks).

Validation requires
self-discipline

Though both are focused on startups and product,
the caveat is to possess the self-discipline to adhere to those
principles.

I experienced this first hand during the Steve
Blank course. Just two weeks into the course, my team wanted to
start coding and build the product. Instead, we should have spent
more time ascertaining how many customers will want or need such a
product before writing one line of code. This is also the idea
behind Design Sprints.

It makes sense to validate assumptions before
committing to a journey, but it is tricky to do it right. I
attribute this to three types of biases: personal ego (it is right
because I think so), social
loafing (it is right because the founder says so), and
group bias (it is right because we think so).

Each methodology is designed to add structure
and clarity of thoughts in an efficient and systematic way, and
protect the decision maker from the costly pitfalls of
bias.

The ‘decision mode’ is intrinsically
uncomfortable due to the many unknowns it faces, and that’s why we
tend to shorten it. We prefer to jump into the ‘doing mode’ that
puts us back into the flow and
in our comfort zones.

Applying the lean decision concept to the
wider world

I am proposing a Lean Decision Development
concept for making strategic decisions.

Some examples are: what field should I choose
for college; should I do an MBA, or a PhD, or create my own
company, or join a company, and if so, what type of company -
early-stage, late-stage, or public companies, and in which
fields?

It’s important to note the difference between
strategic decisions and tactical day-to-day, or week-to-week
decisions. A strategic decision leads to a journey where
significant time, resources, and efforts are invested. And as time
is the most precious asset, it begs two fundamental
questions:

Why should I take the journey in the first place, what
is the end goal, what is the return being sought?

How to choose which journey has the best return on
investment? This question builds on the first.

In Lean Decision Development, I advocate for an Introspection
Phase (to find what resonates with me as an individual), then
followed by an Inquisitive Phase by going “outside the building” to
conduct journey sprints to try to figure out what lies at the end
of each journey, before committing to the journey.

Introspection Phase: getting the values
directions right, and then sailing for true North. In this phase,
the question is more about why take the journey. The focus is on me
as an individual, my ambitions and values system,
what I am good at, and what I have energy for. It is my mission
statement.

Inquisitive Phase through Journey Sprints:
imagining the journey is complete, then what? As a thought
experiment, I like to hypothesize about what’s at the end of the
journey, and validate my hypotheses through an inquisitive and
outward-looking investigation. Do the results match my
expectations?

This phase begins with research of primary
sources. It involves asking the right people, reading, and
researching until I develop an evidence-based confidence in my
assessment that the journey is worth the investment.

For instance, let’s assume I want to work at the
United Nations, and for this reason, I will spend $150,000 and two
years pursuing an MBA from a top business school because I heard
that this is what they look for . Well, before I go that route, let
me ask recruiters at the UN whether this is really what I
need.

The objective of this phase is to double-check
one’s assumptions by answering: 1) Is this really what I desired?
2) Am I aware of the risks? 3) Did I collect adequate information
prior to embarking in the journey do I know what support (people,
information, resources) I need along the way? 4) Did I get a sense
of the boundary between the known and the unknown, the tried and
the untried?

Decision Time: making the best educated guess. I
probably formed the best educated guess, which was reached in an
efficient way, about which journey path to choose from my candidate
options. It is time to stop procrastinating, and start
doing.

The Doing Mode: I have now made my decision and
committed to investing my resources to reach a certain milestone.
While the majority of resources are allocated to execution, value
creation, and the discovery of new information by doing, a small
amount of resources needs to be spent learning how the world is
changing and how this affects my journey.

Reflection: while in the doing mode, I discover
new information and I gain more knowledge. I create value and make
progress. But, am I still headed in the right direction, and what
does “right” means?

Am I true to my true North that I formed in the
Introspection Phase? Does my true North need recalibration as I
gain wisdom? Should I persevere or pivot? This is where I have to
step out of the Doing Mode and back into the Decision Mode to
reflect.

In the Lean Decision Development context, the
hierarchical synthesis of information should be towards the True
North — am I still aligned and true to the reason why I started
this journey in the first place, and how is it progressing, how is
it fitting together, what to change, what to do better, and should
I course-correct. This never stops, and this is a continual state
of mind.

Mohamad Charafeddine is senior product manager at Samsung SDS Research America in Silicon Valley and advisor toArzan VC. He has a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, and an MBA from Berkeley Haas School of Business. He writes about ideas, technology, and business onTwitterandMedium,@mohamadtweets.